Renaissance Women: Eulalie Spence

Eulalie Spence (1894-1981) was a playwright, director, and teacher from the British West Indies. She made a living as a school teacher, a profession she stayed in for 40 years, but truly made a name for herself by winning awards in several theater competitions. As a self-described “folk dramatist,” her plays depict everyday Black life. This led her to gain criticism from contemporaries like W.E.B. Du Bois, whom she was in the famed Krigwa Players with. She authored some fourteen plays, five of which were published, including “Episode,” “Fool's Errand,” “Her,” “The Hunch,” and “Undertow.” Her works continue to be studied and performed today.

For Further Reading:

• Eulalie Spence, Playwright of the Harlem Renaissance Era
• Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950  
• Review: In Eulalie Spence’s Harlem, the 1920s Come to Life - The New York Times

This Black History Month, we’re talking about Renaissance Women. As part of the famed cultural and artistic Harlem Renaissance movement, these women found beauty in an often ugly world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, I'm Alia Yates, and I'm a producer here at
Wonder Media Network, and I'm so excited to be guest
hosting this week's episode of La Manica. This Black History Month,
we're talking about Renaissance women. As part of the famed
cultural and artistic Harlem Renaissance movement. These women found beauty
in an often ugly world. In the heyday of the

(00:24):
Harlem Renaissance. There were lots of black women playwrights and directors,
but this prolific dramatist authored over a dozen plays depicting
black life in a different way, one that critics deemed
a political She believed in plays for the purpose of entertainment,
not political propaganda, a stance she is revered for today

(00:45):
but was scorned for in her time. Please welcome eu
Leiale Spence. Eulale Spence was born on July eleventh, eighteen
eighty four, in Nevis, what was then a colony of
the British was Indies. The days of her early childhood
were spent on her father's sugar cane plantation until a

(01:06):
hurricane wiped it out and sent the family abroad in
hopes for a better life. In nineteen oh two, they
left the crystal blue waters of their island home for
the crowded, brick laden buildings of New York City, first
Harlem and then Brooklyn, where they eventually settled. As a

(01:28):
West Indian immigrant, Ulay's father struggled to find work. Because
of this, Eulale and her six sisters grew up in poverty,
but as children, they were unaware of the reality of
their situation, thanks mostly to their mother. Eulayley's mom was
the head of the household, insistent on raising her girls
with a sense of self importance and purpose. These values

(01:51):
were instilled in Ulaylee from a young age and show
up across the many characters she'd go on to craft.
It was through education that Ulaye found her way out
of economic instability. After high school, she went on to
study at the New York Training School for Teachers. Later,
she enrolled in the National Ethiopian Art Theater, an institution

(02:15):
dedicated to training black actors. With this experience under her belt,
Ulayale decided to become an educator. She started teaching at
Brooklyn's Eastern District High School in nineteen twenty seven, where
she taught elocution, dramatics, and English. While Uleaylle earned her education,
she pursued playwriting on the side, churning out numerous works.

(02:38):
Black periodicals like Opportunity and Crisis Magazine began hosting playwright
competitions for Black creatives. Three of Eulalley's plays, Foreign Mail
and The Starter from nineteen twenty six. In nineteen twenty
seven's The Hunch earned awards from these publications. Another play,
The Fool's erran also from nineteen twenty seven one second

(02:59):
play at the prestigious National Little Theater Tournament in New
York City. This notoriety allowed her work to be published
professionally and performed by groups across the nation. During this era,
Uleiley joined the Krigwa Players, founded by activist W. E. B.
Du Bois and librarian Regina Anderson, who we featured in

(03:23):
an episode earlier this month. Krigwa, which stood for Crisis
Guild of Writers and Artists, insisted that its productions were written, directed,
and staged by black folks. The troupe staged several of
you Leiley's plays. Her melodrama Undertow and the church satire
Fools Aaron featured black women characters who confront the men

(03:46):
in their life without fear. These works are also highly
critical of its black men characters. In her a one
act mystery play, a Filipino woman returns at a ghost
to haunt her white husband in retribution for years of
cruelty done onto her, likely recalling the way Euleale and

(04:07):
her family members were received as outsiders as West Indian
immigrants among the African American community. In all of these plays,
the dialogue contains African American vernacular English or AAVE, a
choice found highly deplorable by members of the black literari

(04:28):
at the time. They feared that the use of black
dialect and plays would associate Black creatives with stereotypes of minstrelcy,
but Ulayy saw this as a deliberate tool important to
faithfully portraying the community. Eulaley's plays were different from those
of her contemporaries. Her characters were not subject to lynchings

(04:49):
or sexual abuse, which was common of many racial dramas
of the time, often set in the Deep South. Instead,
Ulayly focused on slice of life stories. Yes, her characters
were black, but they were faced with a variety of
issues and situations, dealing with interpersonal conflict and grappling with
gender and class expectations. Eulaiale was unafraid of writing black

(05:13):
characters into seemingly non racial plots or imagining different fictional
realities for Black people. This became the biggest critique of
her work. One journalist said that her work was quote
not true to Negro life. They did not impress the
audience with the feeling that they actually exist. Another wrote

(05:35):
that quote, some people might say that the characters are
really white, only painted black. Among her most prominent critics
was W. E. B. Du Bois, who had worked alongside
Uleaylee in Krigwa. In nineteen twenty six, Dubois published somewhat
of a manifesto in The Crisis magazine. It laid out

(05:56):
what he thought African American theaters should be quote for us,
by us, about us, and near us. That is to say,
dramatic works should have plots about black life and cater
primarily to black audiences, earning their support and approval. In
his eyes, Eulali's work did not fit this criteria. Du

(06:21):
Bois consistently advised Uleaye to use her excellent writing skills
for propaganda to comment on hot button topics of racial politics.
Uleylee simply disagreed. She felt that black writers and actors
should not be limited to stories about racial oppression and violence.
She responded publicly to Dubois in her own essay published

(06:42):
in the June nineteen twenty eight edition of Opportunity magazine.
In it, she writes, quote, as long as we expect
our public, white and colored, to support our drama, it
were wise to steer far away from the old subjects.
We go to the theater for entertainment, not to have old
fires and hates rekindled. Ulaye was integral to the rise

(07:05):
of Krigwa's popularity, but she still could never see eye
to eye with Dubois. This came to a head at
the nineteen twenty seven Little Theater Tournament, when Krigwa sponsored
Ulali's play Fool's Errand in a competition. The show won,
but a dispute with Dubois over the prize money left
Ulaye penniless. After this, the Krigwaa players disbanded. In nineteen

(07:33):
thirty four, Ulayali wrote her only three act play, called
The Whipping. It was an adaptation of a novel by
a white author. In it, a young white woman in
a rural town antagonizes the Ku Klux Klan. The clan retaliates,
but the woman prevails against them, framing her assailants and
using the media attention to start a movie career. This plot,

(07:57):
a woman subverting the Ku Kus Klan and getting away
with it, was unexpected from a black playwright. In writing
The Whipping, Ulaye worked with white literary professionals to secure
the rights to the story and pursue a commercial adaptation
of the show, an action that was yet again looked
at as antithetical to the core values of black dramatists.

(08:21):
Eulaye sold the manuscript to Paramount Pictures, but the production
ever came to light. After this setback, Ulaye retreated from
life in the theater and carried out the rest of
her career as a teacher. She went on to earn
her Ba in Speech from New York University in nineteen
thirty seven and Masters in Speech from Columbia University's Teachers

(08:41):
College in nineteen thirty nine. She mentored students like Joseph Papp,
who went on to found the famed Public Theater of
New York City. He cites Uleily as the most influential
force in his life Eulayy's career as a playwright was
long forgotten in her old age. She died in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,

(09:02):
on March seventh, nineteen eighty one, at the age of
eighty six. Her obituary says nothing of her career as
a playwright, referring to her only as a retired school teacher.
The legacy of her work is only beginning to be
appreciated in the present day, where her plays are being
studied and performed by theater groups across the country. Thanks

(09:29):
for joining me and all of our fabulous guest host
on this month's episodes of Womanica. For more information, find
us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcasts. Shout out
to Jenny and Liz Kaplan for letting me on the
mic once again, and as always, we'll be taking a
break for the weekend. Tune in Monday for a brand
new theme.